Xodoc localization mtg notes 102707

OLPC Doc/Localization Meeting - 10/27/07 - 11am-5pm EST

This agenda is for Saturday for anyone who ends up having a thought they think should be addressed and for the dynamic agenda. if you have some questions/thoughts, please add a section at the bottom of the document and indicate name after question/thought etc.

Notify when agenda/call is set up: > michael cooper, dan samper, brent (todd contact)

Agenda

11:00-11:30 hello how are you

11:30-12:30 localization call

14:00-15:00 strategy and Q/A (Anne can attend at this time or earlier)

Ground to cover > review of groups (doc, etc.) > status of translations, quotes, deadlines > strategy for commercial/open source.

Logistics Does olpc have a voice conferencing solution? Yes, SJ referred to a number. Can we whip up an adobe connect professional account in time (purpose: to capture mtg for others and serve as precedent to capture future meetings as training/get acquainted for future people)

Questions Q: What is the best way to determine dates and priorities for documentation? Are the children third priority, parents any priority as an audience, and are teachers first priority? A: See the 2 tiers of doc and corresponding audiences.

Q: What priority should we make the technical staff, such as those keeping the school server running (is that just a subset of the teacher audience?) A: Audience for 2nd tier docs.

Q: Is a printed manual a possibility or even desired? A: It's a possibility, but only with the individual wanting it, they'd go through lulu.com to get it printed.

Q: Should we try to write separate documentation for the school servers? A: Likely part of the tier 2 docs, community-based.

Q: How is laptop.org currently recognizing contributions on a personal level and on a company level? Would it help to put together a "request for sponsorship" for translation, illustrations, or template design? -Anne

Q: Does laptop.org have a set of design guidelines? If we were to request creation of print/PDF templates, would the designer work with the website designers? Is there a need for consistent messaging from laptop.org? A: The Style Guide on the wiki.laptop.org should be a place for that. There's no printed/PDF template need from laptop.org.

Q: How can we maintain a relationship with the documentation person that laptop.org hires (not duplicating work, communicate with him or her, and so on)? A: They still have not identified the right person who is highly wiki-fluent but will continue working on that. A weekly meeting will help us continue to keep documentation progressing and will help with communication and direction.

Notes Attendees @ 2:00 EST: SJ, Todd, Dan, Anne

Documentation needs: Two tiers of documentation: 1st tier: Quick start doc -suitable for kids (think sixth grade reading level) or anyone who is not necessary highly technical or new to computers and so on -very visual, lots of graphics, low text, minimalism, online -easy to localize Outline for Quick start doc: How to use the laptop Basic troubleshooting, how to get help Show off activities, especially the core activities This doc will be online, but a smaller body of work than the 2nd tier (i.e. more of the online documentation will be in the 2nd tier.) SJ mentioned a Korean game that uses only symbols for language, Todd will get the name so we can look to that for an example.

2nd tier: Technical docs -suitable for higher literacy audience, meaning technology literacy would contain technical specs allows people to start making add-ons, publish "hacks" lots of community support surrounding this documentation - community created, community interactive FAQs, forums, everything with dynamic answers

Other doc needs - need to regularly publish the docs to this wiki.laptop.org wiki to ensure knowledge that it exists. - need to ensure that doc can be printed at lulu.com. SJ notes that an independent distributor would be the way to go here, likes lulu.com, also amazon has something similar. - would like to get some pencil sketch designs from Pentagram, their logo designers, for help pages on the wiki that would have different CSS styling (new namespace). This would allow us to wikislice the OLPC wiki. Anne talked with Michael Priestly about this possibility and will continue to follow up on that concept. - Wiki needs style guide - Anne will work on the page that SJ started at http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Style_guide. Anne will get Michael Cooper's permission to use the email that he posted to the devel (or Sugar?) list about writing for translation.

Localization Localization for the software strings happens with the Pootle system, an open source translation string management solution. When you make an activity, you create pootle files. Pootle keeps track of a collection of strings thrat are displayed in the software - it's a collection of string IDs. See also http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Pootle.

There is currently no "open" (as in open source) translation memory available for all to use. Todd has been involved with TRIM - an Instant Messaging solution with multiple languages translated while you type, using machine translation memory.

Michael at dotsub - a video subtitling company - joined us midway. He is interested in an open trnslation collection - they have wikiwords currently, part of an organization with 160K translators. He'll join the localization mailing list and is willing and able to help.

Action items: Anne to work on the Style Guide page Anne to seek out game writers for ideas and/or assistance Todd to get the name of the Korean game with symbols as a language